


Spark

by UrsineSecretary



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: Gen, Mentions of Other Ram Village Characters, No Dialogue, Pre-Game Centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24688243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UrsineSecretary/pseuds/UrsineSecretary
Summary: Starting a new life is hard when you're a child who's had everything taken away from them.
Kudos: 4





	Spark

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Spellbinding Zine](https://twitter.com/spellbindingfe). Thanks to all who supported it!

Ash and soot still lingers in Anthiese's nostrils when she wakes to the sight of a cottage room. She’s safe for now; alone. Perhaps now is the right time to let out that grief she'd been keeping inside.

The tears would have immediately fallen had the sound of commotion coming from behind the sole door not snapped her idea of security in two; the thought of even crying sizzles into nothingness when it opens, and the knight who saved her strides in with a boy no older than her——self.

The older man introduces her as the boy’s distant cousin with a name that is clearly not her own. They are lies she almost protests to, if it weren’t for the elder’s stern stare, reminiscent of the expression she frequently saw from her Rigelian stepmother. She’s reluctant to say, much less do anything in response to her “cousin’s” awkwardly bright smile, for that, too, reminds her so much of…

…It is Celica who turns away, lies back down on the cot and wraps herself deep into the covers. It is she who hears “Grandpapa” lead the boy out of the room, the door closing gently after them.

Even with the space in-between that door and the muffled conversation behind it, she can’t spark the will to muster a sob.

* * *

The boy whom she comes to know as Alm brings villagers to meet her. Given all her attempts to pull herself away from him when he tried to drag her to meet them at the village square the other day, she’s surprised and touched, but this clod strays further from her good graces— he and the villagers don’t know her. None of them can know her. She will bring danger to them if they do.

One night, Sir Mycen asks if she wishes to learn how to better protect herself (and of course she does). He then suggests to meet him outside the cottage early tomorrow morning.

Before she makes her way there, she peeks out from her window and sees some of the other children from the village along with Alm. She decides to wait by a tree much further away until Grandpapa tells her that he expects to train all of them at the same time.

…For a moment, she wants to protest. Protecting herself has nothing to do with the other children… Still, she'd rather be able to do something in case...

Before training begins, Gray asks her if she’d woken up outside of her cot. She’s glad that a rude awakening is all they can get from her current expression.

* * *

Swinging a heavy training sword seemed easy enough, but its range is nothing like that of a bow's. She puts in as much time as she can to build endurance and draw enough weight, but she finally hesitates when Grandpapa hands over a few books and calmly suggests that she try an alternative method.

She watches Kliff successfully fire an arrow into the target— albeit not dead center— before deciding to shut herself in Grandpapa’s room to familiarize herself with the tomes’ archaic teachings. Most of the words are too complex for her to understand, but she can get a gist of what it’s trying to instruct her to do without the need to ask for help.

The more she delves into magic, the less she sees the other children— until the morning when her fingers conjure a spark that sets the hearth (and her heart) alight with fear. Bright enough to drag Anthiese back to the villa, bed in flames and a heat so unbearable she can hardly breathe. It takes a splash of water from the mug in Alm’s hands to bring Celica back to the light of the sunrise and a doused fireplace, coughing not because of smoke in her lungs but of the residual water that she breathed in her stupor.

Once her face is dry and devoid of the need to cry, she places the books on top of Grandpapa’s bed and joins the others once more.

* * *

A year of fetching the water from the well, tending to the sheep, and training with the children kindles her desire to stay in this quaint village. Nothing much happens in the days spent doing chores, so once they’re finished there’s almost always an opportunity to splash into the river with Gray, Tobin and Kliff, or teach Faye and Alm how to make good flower crowns in the woods bordering the village. Alm has always been fussy about doing something so girly, yet still he is kind enough to stay and watch her make them anyway. One day, Celica silently promises to herself (beneath his verbal promise to stay together), she’ll make one that’s manly enough for him to wear.

Mounted knights bring a disturbance to the village and utter terror in her gut when one of them recognizes the face of Anthiese. Though half a dozen children led by a grizzled war veteran are enough to drive them off, she is reminded of why she was brought here in the first place… and why Celica must now pack her things and leave despite Alm’s ignorant protests.

Yet, before she departs to another place with Sir Mycen once more, she gives the boy a parting gift and a promise to hold. Not the silly one she would’ve made in the field of flowers, but one whose spark she hopes will be kept alive as they’re apart.

Her journey through treacherous waters only fuels her desire to revisit the tomes Grandpapa left her as a parting gift, and being secluded in a convent on a small island is the perfect place to do just that.

* * *

It is seven years later that Celica finds herself beside the jaws of a dead necrodragon. She cannot afford to look back towards her retainers— only forward, to the mouth of a cave where dangerous terrors await.

She snaps her fingers, sparking a flame that lights her way as she ventures forth.


End file.
